Potter's Pills.
“Christ,” Harry muttered to himself. With his free hand he snatched up a rag and sopped up his shirtfront with it.
The jar of pickled worm feet lay broken on the floor. He stared at the shards for a long while before bending down to clean up after himself.
“You do realize we have magic for a reason,” a cool voice drawls from behind him.
“Fucking hell Malfoy!” He shouted angrily, “you made me cut myself!”
There was a linear wound edging down the side of his right hand. Immediately it started to sting and blood rushed up to meet the new hole in his body.
“Shhhh!” Malfoy hissed, “you can’t be speaking so filthily with all these children about,”
Oh to hell with the children, Harry wanted to say.
To hell with everything actually, he didn’t want to be here, back in school, not anymore.
If only he hadn’t been aching from a broken heart and if only he hadn’t acted impulsively on that night.
Instead, Harry straightened his back and cleared his throat, “sorry,” he said.
Draco’s brow flicked up in surprise. Did he just witness humility from The Savior?
He watched Harry clamber around the dungeon looking for something. Had Harry always been this clumsy?
Perhaps the years had fogged his memory… he was certain though, that Astoria’s shrill voice had drilled most of his sanity from his existence.
“So… I wouldn’t have taken you as a Potions Master,” Draco said.
From below a table, Harry grunted.
Draco went on, “have you always had an interest in potions that no one else knew about?”
“There’s a lot of things people don’t know about me,” Harry re-emerged with something clasped in his fist.
“You didn’t answer the question,” Draco said, trying to keep his voice friendly.
“Look,” Harry snapped, “just because we’ve technically forgiven each other doesn’t mean we have to be all buddy-buddy,”
Taken aback, Draco gaped at him.
“You heard me!” Harry’s voice hitched, “Get out!”
“For Merlin’s sake, I was only trying to extend an olive branch,” Draco said.
“Well don’t,” Harry turned his back to him, “it’s not worth it,”
Draco only bothered to linger a second longer before stalking off.
Then in an undertone Harry whispered, “I’m not worth it,”
-
Nighttime fell over the castle in a heavy blanket of stars. For the most part, everyone had winded down. Harry wasn’t näive, he knew that there would always be a few stragglers that found a way to wander the halls.
As he strode down the length of the corridors, he felt nostalgic, but only briefly. It was bit back down by pain. Pain in the lower section of his back, ebbing outwards in its dull, ever-present way.
He dug into his robes and pulled out the small pill bottle he was looking for earlier. He didn’t need the light of his wand to see, it had become second nature to him to be able to open pill bottles.
The first week of school had not gone exactly seamlessly, to say the least. All of the students had poured into his classroom with high hopes. After all, they were to be educated by none other than Harry James Potter Himself. Who wouldn’t be excited?
Harry. That’s who wouldn’t be excited. Then the rest of his students became disinterested within the first ten minutes.
Thinking back on it, he probably should have been nicer, should’ve grabbed his happy mask and shoved it on so that the students would feel welcome.
But come the day he was to teach his first lesson, he entered the room in a huff, his hair askew, and a scowl etched on his countenance.
“In this class you will not mess around, you will not take this as some kind of cakewalk, and most of all— you will not be ignorant, no one has time for that, you are here to learn and that’s all you will do, am I clear?”
He had peered out at the couple dozen stunned students. Quills had froze mid-sentence and ink had already begun to dry.
With a very audible sigh, Harry demanded, “Am I clear?”
“Yes professor,” came their sullen response.
The next few days there were some students who still donned eager faces, hoping that maybe day one was just a mere fallacy.
Oh, but how wrong they were.
Harry popped a pill in his mouth and downed it without getting a drink.
As always, the pill burned on its way down before continuing its journey to lessen Harry’s pain.
-
There was a thud of a door opening and closing followed by another dampened thud of someone colliding into couch cushions.
Draco knew because he threw himself at his own couch and it had made the exact same sound.
The sound intrusion had woken him up and he casted a tempest. 1:47 in the morning.
Still bleary-eyed, Draco got up and put his robe on, making sure to wind the cloth belt through the loopholes and securing it with an expert knot.
The only thing Astoria had really proved herself useful for was how to work with clothes.
She used to tie his ties for him. Of course that was before he got caught having a correspondence with another wizard. Astoria was so disgusted, yet she wouldn’t leave.
Oh how he wished she would.
Draco opened the door and cautiously approached Harry’s door. He rapped his knuckles gently on the mahogany surface and waited.
He wondered if Harry had already fallen asleep but decided that no one really falls asleep that fast.
He knocked again and this time he heard an irritated groan.
Come to think of it, the most he’d heard from Harry this week were more grunts and groans.
Still no one came to the door and he opened his mouth to say something when the door swung open.
There were dark circles under Harry’s eyes that he hadn’t noticed from afar. They looked sunken into his skull, like they were eating away at him and his mouth was downturned with cracked lips.
Draco pulled his eyes away from Harry’s lips and forced himself to stare into his eyes. Something plummeted inside of him.
Why were Harry’s eyes so blank? Why weren’t they bright green, the eyes that everyone said came from his mother, from Lily?
“Do you know what time it is, Professor Malfoy?” Harry deadpanned.
“I could ask the same of you,” Draco said.
“I don’t know what you mean,”
“Don’t act like you’re sneaky, I heard you come in,” Draco pointed out.
“And what?” Harry was already jumping onto the defensive, “You fancy yourself as my chaperone now?”
“You don’t look well,” Draco said weakly.
“How unkind of you to say,” Harry said shortly.
“Something's wrong, I’ve heard students talk poorly of your class, that can’t be true of course, maybe I can help if you’re having trouble—,”
“—dammit Malfoy, you still don’t know when to leave things alone!” Harry growled.
“Why are you like this?” Draco’s voice cracked.
Harry flinched at him, furthermore receding into whatever barrier he’d set up within himself.
“Goodnight. Malfoy.” Harry told him.
Before he closed the door, Draco caught a look into the room where the bed was perfectly made up. Just as his own had been on the first day he’d returned to Hogwarts.
Why wouldn’t Harry use a perfectly good bed? The couches were comfortable and all… but for sleeping?
His observation had to be cut short as the door slammed shut in his face.
There was a shuffling sound followed by more silence. For some odd reason, Draco couldn’t move from the door.
Inside the room came the small pop of a bottle cap being pulled off, for which Harry was sure fell on deaf ears.
Except it didn’t.